Dante’s ‘De Monarchia’ (“On Monarchy”) … is a work which contains very interesting ideas that apply to today’s situation, among them a definition of [healthy] “secularity” which I think is unsurpassable.

Dante's originality lies not so much in the affirmation of the autonomy of the state, but in the religious reason for which it is affirmed. This is the way to assert the religiosity of politics and the religious sense of secularism.

Dante’s fundamental idea is not the claim of lay power. The idea is that the fight against ‘cupiditas’ (“lust to possess”) implies a duality of remedies. … It is within the theology of original sin that the mutual autonomy of the Empire and the Church is understood.